Musical Cards

Opera and bridge: two of my favorite things.  So what could be better than an opera about bridge?  Yes, the world's shortest opera (9 minutes) is Samuel Barber's A Hand of Bridge with libretto by Gian Carlo Menotti, himself a successful opera composer, including the world's first made-for-TV opera, Amahl and the Night Visitors.  Barber was one of America's most successful 20th century composers.  Barber's music can be sensual and emotional.  His Knoxville Summer of 1915 (based on text by James Agee) is a wonderfully evocative piece and still firmly in the repertoire.

I finally got around to listening to the recording loaned to me by my friend Walt.  The opera begins thus: 1♥ 2♣ 2♥ pass 4♥ 5♣ 5♥ all pass.  Thereupon each of the four players (two married couples) soliloquizes about some topic.  Their lack of attention to the game at hand is anathema to us bridge players!  Some of their musings are also a little, shall we say, risqué.  It is not a serious piece but the light orchestration is inventive and witty, including some good bassoon parts.

Perhaps it was composed as the antithesis of the Wagner style opera, for example Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg, which takes four and one half hours to perform.  I imagine that A Hand... would be impossible to stage alone.  Nobody would want to drive into New York and pay $100+ for a 9-minute opera.  But I can think of at least one opera that it could be paired with: Tchaikovsky's The Queen of Spades.  There may be others.  Cards also play important roles in several other operas that I can think of.  Top of the list, in terms of dramatic importance, would be La Traviata (Verdi), Carmen (Bizet) and no fewer than two Puccini operas: La Fanciulla del West and La Rondine.  There's also a ballet by Stravinsky: Jeu de Cartes.

It's also been noted many times that it is not unusual to find bridge players interested in music.  I know lots of musically inclined bridge players.  Many of us Boston-area players are acquainted with the principal viola of the Boston Symphony Orchestra, Steve Ansell. Perhaps this correlation could be the subject of some fruitful research.